hislopsoffsideagain
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Everything posted by hislopsoffsideagain
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I think it's fair to say it is now official - 'Useless' Euan Norris is the worst official in Scottish football. Not content with screwing us over against Rangers, he appeared determined from the outset to allow our opponents to take liberties all over the pitch. The sending off of Gillet looked a bit fishy to me - Kenny appeared convinced he'd won the ball - and certainly there was plenty of protest that Barrowman was offside as he put Dunfermline in front. Two incidents summed Norris up - in the first half he pulled up Barrowman for his umpteenth foul and clearly gave him a 'final warning' chat; a minute later Barrowman hacks someone else...and Norris stops him for a long chat again. Then, right on half-time Dunfermline's defensive wall refused to retreat for a free kick even when the ref stood where he wanted them to be. Instead of booking one of them, he gave up when he got them 8 yards...and then ignored the fact that one of them raced out so they were about 5 yards from the ball when the free kick was taken. About the only thing that cretin of a referee got right was adding on six minutes for the obscene amount of time wasting the Pars did in the second half - though I don't know why he can't book the time wasters as well as adding on the time. If I was a Dunfermline fan, I would be horrified and ashamed by their second half performance. They never had any control over the game, even against ten men, and seemed content simply to camp out on the 18 yard box and see the game out. Entire civilizations have risen and fallen in the time it took them to make one substitution. They managed all of two speculative efforts on goal in the second period, as far as I can recall. As for us, we were pretty hopeless with eleven men, but I thought we did about as well as you can expect in the second half. Tuffers is the main villain of the piece - it was his horrendous air-shot on a backpass which led to the Gillet dismissal, and then he only managed to palm the resultant freekick straight to Barrowman. Frankly, he had bugger all else to do for most of the game. Our back four did a pretty good job today. Piermayr did well when tucked in at centre-half, though Coxy looked a bit uncertain when he was shunted to right-back. Once again, Golobart was superb. Barrowman took one look at him and clearly decided "I'm not up for taking him on" - so nothing has changed from when he played for us. Most impressive for me was Foran, who I felt gave a real captain's performance today - he led by example with fantastic effort and seemed to be still urging everyone on even when all was lost. He's had plenty of criticism this season (much of it warranted) but since moved into midfield he has looked like a different man. The big message to take away from this game is this: If Dunfermline are like this every week, then there is absolutely no chance we are going down.
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<p>It's definitely good news that Roman Golobart has extended his loan deal from Wigan till the end of the season.</p> <p>The centre-back opened his goalscoring account with a header against Aberdeen on Christmas Eve, in one of a string of good performances last month which make it no surprise that the Spaniard was CTO's player of the month for December.</p> <p>Jonny Hayes has also been in top form - the Irish wide man picked up the most votes in the St. Mirren, Dundee Utd and Hibs games - but Golobart was the star man in the defeat by Rangers, and in the victory over the Dons he was selected by every single voter in the poll. His 68 votes put him nine ahead of Hayes, with David Davis in third.</p> <p>Golly becomes the fifth different player to win player of the month this season, following Ryan Esson (July), Graeme Shinnie (August and September), Andrew Shinnie (October) and David Davis (November).</p> <p>Hayes and Golobart move up to ninth and tenth in the overall Player of the Year standings, which are still led by Graeme Shinnie. The young left-back continues to enjoy a healthy lead over Gregory Tade and Ross Tokely after a blistering start to the season.</p> <!-- This HTML code has been optimized by http://www.iwebtool.com/html_optimizer --> <table width="95%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="50%" align="center" valign="top"><table width="90%" border="0" align="left" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;" colspan="2"><h4><strong>DECEMBER VOTING</strong></h4></td></tr><tr> <td width="95%"><strong>Player</strong></td> <td style="text-align: center;"><strong>Votes</strong></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="95%">Roman Golobart</td> <td style="text-align: center;">67</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="95%">Jonny Hayes</td> <td style="text-align: center;">58</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="95%">David Davis</td> <td style="text-align: center;">32</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="95%">Richie Foran</td> <td style="text-align: center;">30</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="95%">Kenny Gillet</td> <td style="text-align: center;">26</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="95%">Billy McKay</td> <td style="text-align: center;">23</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="95%">Gregory Tade</td> <td style="text-align: center;">17</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="95%">Ross Tokely</td> <td style="text-align: center;">16</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="95%">Lee Cox</td> <td style="text-align: center;">11</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="95%">Ryan Esson</td> <td style="text-align: center;">9</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="95%">Andrew Shinnie</td> <td style="text-align: center;">9</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="95%">Graeme Shinnie</td> <td style="text-align: center;">9</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="95%">Chris Hogg</td> <td style="text-align: center;">2</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="95%">Thomas Piermayr</td> <td style="text-align: center;">2</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="95%">Greg Tansey</td> <td style="text-align: center;">1</td> </tr> </tbody> </table></td> <td width="50%" align="center" valign="top"><table width="90%" border="0" align="right" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2"> <tbody> <tr> <td colspan="2"><h4 style="text-align: center;"><strong>OVERALL STANDINGS (to end Dec)</strong></h4></td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Player</strong></td> <td style="text-align: center;"><strong>Points</strong></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Graeme Shinnie</td> <td style="text-align: center;">35</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Gregory Tade</td> <td style="text-align: center;">22</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Ross Tokely</td> <td style="text-align: center;">21</td> </tr> <tr> <td>David Davis</td> <td style="text-align: center;">17</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Ryan Esson</td> <td style="text-align: center;">16</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Richie Foran</td> <td style="text-align: center;">16</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Greg Tansey</td> <td style="text-align: center;">15</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Andrew Shinnie</td> <td style="text-align: center;">15</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Jonny Hayes</td> <td style="text-align: center;">15</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Roman Golobart</td> <td style="text-align: center;">13</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Josh Meekings</td> <td style="text-align: center;">3</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Gavin Morrison</td> <td style="text-align: center;">3</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Thomas Piermayr</td> <td style="text-align: center;">3</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Owain Tudur-Jones</td> <td style="text-align: center;">3</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Chris Hogg</td> <td style="text-align: center;">2</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Aaron Doran</td> <td style="text-align: center;">1</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Kenny Gillet</td> <td style="text-align: center;">1</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Nick Ross</td> <td style="text-align: center;">1</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Jonny Tuffey</td> <td style="text-align: center;">1</td> </tr> </tbody> </table></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><table width="95%" border="0" align="center" style="background-color: #e5e5e5; width: 100%;"> <tbody> <tr> <td style="text-align: center;" colspan="2"><h4><strong>Previous Player of the Month awards</strong></h4></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="50%" style="text-align: center;"><strong>Month</strong></td> <td width="50%" style="text-align: center;"><strong>Player</strong></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="50%" style="text-align: center;">July 2011</td> <td width="50%" style="text-align: center;">Greg Tansey</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="50%" style="text-align: center;">August 2011</td> <td width="50%" style="text-align: center;">Graeme Shinnie</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="50%" style="text-align: center;">September 2011</td> <td width="50%" style="text-align: center;">Graeme Shinnie</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="50%" style="text-align: center;">October 2011</td> <td width="50%" style="text-align: center;">Andrew Shinnie</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="50%" style="text-align: center;">November 2011</td> <td width="50%" style="text-align: center;">David Davis</td> </tr> </tbody> </table></td> </tr> </table> -
Just listened to TB's post-match interview - Tokely and Andrew Shinnie both had calf injuries and might be back for midweek. Tansey was on the bench because he had been ill this week. Jonny Hayes also on twitter saying he had the squits pre-match and had to knock back some imodium before the game!
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Not exactly vintage stuff...but if you'd offered me a 2-1 win before kickoff I'd have bitten your hand off. The first half was absolutely brutal from both sides. The wind didn't help, but the number of poor touches and misplaced passes was astonishing. At half-time it had 0-0 written all over it. The start of the second period was much the same. Then, out of nothing, Davis skins three players and brings a save out of their keeper. From the resulting corner, Golobart bullets in a header. A few minutes later we get another corner, the ball bobbles around a bit, and Tade's shot squirms through a crowd and into the bottom corner. Of course, we can't make it easy on ourselves; Aberdeen got one back when Cox made a pig's ear of defending out wide, all the defenders ran to the near post and left Fallon unmarked at the back stick to pull one back. That said, Esson didn't really have a save to make before or after. Not a great performance, but on a day like today only the three points matter. Golobart deserved MOTM for me, doing really well considering he got booked in the first minute. Gillet did a fantastic job alongside him. Davis was his usual Tank-like self, and Richie Foran had his best game at home for ages - he played deep in midfield again like last week and seems to bring us a bit of steel to that area of the pitch. Tade put in another great shift. On the other hand, I thought Cox had a poor game, and McKay looked a bit lost up front on his own. Graeme Shinnie got a bit of a runaround in the second half as well. 4 points clear of Dunfermline (and hopefully Hibs) - lets make sure we increase that gap in midweek!
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Since Hogg has just tweeted 'devastated isn't the word!!!!!!!' I assume the news about his knee is bad. Gutted
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According to his twitter, Hogg will be getting a scan on the knee on Monday.
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That was an absolute nightmare. 1-0 at half-time flattered us completely - Dundee Utd had all the possession and we just sat back and hung on. When the second goal went in I thought it might be our day...but what a pitiful collapse. Each of the three goals was a defensive catastrophe. With the exception maybe of Hayes and Davis (at least up to his sending off), it was an abysmal performance. Utd's 4-5-1, with an extra man in central midfield, allowed them to dominate, and even when they went to 4-4-2 it seemed like we didn't know what to do. The management deserve plenty of blame - TB's decision to bring on Nick Ross, who touched the ball all of five times and gave the ball away every time, and to leave Tade on the bench for so long, beggars belief. We were desperately crying out for a holding midfield player like Gavin Morrison on the pitch. And I can't help feeling Butcher should have been concentrating on the game for the last 10 minutes, instead of spending the time shouting back at critical spectators. The defence did all right in the first half, but imploded in the second - not helped by an appalling lack of protection from Cox and in particular Tansey who repeatedly gave the ball away and lost every single 50-50 challenge he attempted. Typical Golobart - rock-solid for the majority of the time, then slices a harmless cross-shot into his own net under no pressure. As for Foran, well, our captain plumbs new depths in the quality of his performances every time I see him. Like Tansey, he was a liability today. He's too slow, he can't win headers (he keeps trying to pretend he's being pushed but the ref today wasn't falling for it) and he offers his full-back no protection. With Hayes double-teamed most of the time, McKay is left with only scraps to feed on. We've had some rotten performances this season - Aberdeen away, Dunfermline at home - but this one was as bad as any. And without Hogg, I'm not sure we're going to improve our defending any time soon.
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Yngwie, you have just made my day.
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You're absolutely right, RiG. Whenever I go up for a header I always look to see who might be challenging me - doesn't mean I want to elbow them!
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Outside the ground after the game there were a number of Celtic fans belting out 'ooh ah, up the ra'. Do you honestly think the SPL would dare to punish Celtic? It's quite clear that the Old Firm are pretty much untouchable in Scotland - only UEFA would dare penalize them for anything.
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Terry's post-match interview is utterly, utterly wonderful. I hope he and Mo waited outside O'Reilly's door for the coward to come out and face the music.
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Usually I'm happy to put down these shocking decisions down to the refs just being incompetent - but having watched that game, that's the closest I've ever come to believing that a referee is bent. I'm certain that, had the score been 0-0 with 20 minutes left, he would have found a reason to give Celtic a penalty. I'd love to see Samaras in front of the SFA for clearly feigning injury to get a player sent off - but the SFA will probably ignore that...just as they will inevitably refuse to rescind the red card. As for our own players today, I thought they put in an excellent performance - the back four did a very good job indeed, with Tokely as the stand out, and I thought David Davis was absolutely magnificent in midfield. The next time we play one of the Old Firm, we should probably just start the game with ten men, in order to save the referee time later on. Oh, and what on earth was the deal with that 'Famine and Oppression' banner in the Celtic end? Judging by the waistlines of the away support, there ain't been no famine anywhere near them. They were also giving the sectarian songs a good belt outside the ground after the match, with not a policeman in sight.
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Considering there's been a lot of whinging about how we haven't adequately replaced Adam Rooney, and how we don't have an adequate goal threat, and that Tade isn't a 'natural goalscorer' (whatever the hell that means), I thought it might be interesting to compare Rooney from last season against Tade from this season: Rooney in 2010/11 All competitions: 21 goals in 42 games (41 starts, 1 as sub) SPL: 15 goals in 38 games (37 starts, 1 as sub) Tade in 2011/12 All competitions: 6 goals in 15 games (13 starts, 2 as sub) SPL: 6 goals in 14 games (13 starts, 1 as sub) Note that Rooney's goals included 7 penalties, 5 of which were in the league. So he only scored 10 goals from open play in the SPL last season. Tade is, in fact, only 4 goals away from equalling Rooney's total in open play for the whole of last season in the SPL!
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What a run by Davis for the fifth - three Killie defenders just bounced off of him. And what a run by Tade for his first, 60 yards, and then round the keeper...not bad for a guy who has missed so many one-on-ones this season.
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My mum's half-time analysis of the game - 'We're doing all right. We should probably win this.' She's certainly a better pundit than Alan Shearer...
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Awesome result. Well done, lads! That bad feeling I had pre-kickoff was clearly just indigestion! Still bottom, but only five points off top six. It's a shame it's an international break next week...
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The world's gone mad. Six goals away from home?! Yet, unless Hibs nick a goal, we're still bottom of the league!
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Typical - I blogged this week that Caley would be relegated this season. Then they go and score four goals away from home. I clearly know nothing about football.
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Oh, for goodness sake...
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Thought Shane played well last week, shame he's not available today - neck injury I think? That defence worries the heck out of me
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I'd be quite happy with a point today. Got a bad feeling about this.
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Esson Meekings Tokely Golobart Gillet Cox Davis Sutherland A. Shinnie G. Shinnie Tade Subs: Tuffey, Proctor, Chippendale, Ross, Tansey, Foran, McKay Back to the 4-2-3-1 which has fared us well in the past and gives us some solidity against a good Motherwell team. Five changes, including a revamp of the back four. Push Graeme Shinnie further up the pitch to give us width and bring in the solid Gillet at left back. Bring Cox back in and use Sutherland wide as we did at the end of last season. Drop Proctor, Ross, Tansey and Foran, as well as the suspended Piermayr.
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ICT -V- Dunfermline : Matchday Thread
hislopsoffsideagain replied to Scotty's topic in Caley Thistle
Those who didn't go to the game should not be deceived by the scoreline. This was a game that Dunfermline should have won at a canter, and would have done had it not been for some shoddy finishing, another epic Ryan Esson effort (it's depressing how often we say that) and for some good luck when Burns hit the post. Apart from Esson, compliments should go out to the tireless Tade, and to David Davis, who put in a wonderful effort in central midfield. As for the rest...well, they can all get stuffed, frankly. Huge, huge question marks hang over the management's decision to stick with the same XI who were an utter embarrassment at McDiarmid Park last week. Yet again, McKay, Sutherland, Cox, Chippendale and Gillet sat on the bench, and Golobart was put out to pasture. We ended the game today with a centre-back at right back (Meekings), two right backs in central defence (Proctor and Tokely) and a central midfielder (Tansey) floundering like a fish out of water on the right flank. No wonder we were a mess. Meanwhile, our esteemed captain did take a brief break from standing around looking fed up and blaming his teammates for all his mistakes in order to set up a goal, but otherwise Foran was a complete waste-of-space again. And hopefully Butcher and Malpas crucified Proctor after the game - for god's sake, if you know you're going to have to hack the guy to save a potential goal, at least do it outside the box. He's got enough experience to know that. Proc was a complete liability all day - he kept following Dunfermline's lone striker whenever he dropped deep, leaving a great big hole for midfield players to run into. But is it Proctor's fault that a deluded manager keeps playing him in a position that doesn't suit him? Admittedly, the only position that suits Proctor is left-back-in-the-dressing-room. There is a huge staleness to the team right now. They need new ideas desperately - this current tactical set up, with these players, absolutely does not work. I still have confidence that Butcher and Malpas can bring these new ideas to the table, but my faith in them is really starting to be tested. Our next four fixtures are a sobering prospect - Motherwell (H), Kilmarnock (A), Celtic (H), Hearts (A). There is every chance we will lose all four and be cut adrift at the bottom by November. -
St Johnstone -v- ICT : matchday thread
hislopsoffsideagain replied to Scotty's topic in Caley Thistle
Dougal, were you even at the game? - definitely a 4-4-2, Foran stood up front all game. The tactics weren't negative, just crap. -
St Johnstone -v- ICT : matchday thread
hislopsoffsideagain replied to Scotty's topic in Caley Thistle
Just back. We were absolutely awful today, from the moment St Johnstone went in front, until the final whistle. Our attacking gameplan in the first half consisted of 'punt it down the right wing and maybe we'll win a throw in'. In the second half it turned into 'piunt it down the middle and maybe Foran will flick something on'. Whenever we got into the final third we made a mess of it - our delivery from wide areas was awful, our midfield couldn't play a killer pass and, whenever we did get the ball in their box, our ball control was utterly hopeless. Let's split it down into the various parts of the team DEFENCE - Useless. Today is incontrovertible evidence that if Proctor and Tokely are our centre back partnership for the rest of the season, then we are a shoo-in for relegation. Rossco had an absolute shocker today, bossed in the air by first Sheridan and then Haber, and completely unable to deal with Sandaza's movement. Proctor didn't win a header either and looked like what he is - a player playing out of position. Esson made a great stop in the first half but seemed all over the place for the second goal. Graeme Shinnie had his poorest game for ages, using the ball poorly and really struggling with Chris Millar. Piermayr might be my MOTM, simply because I can't recall him doing anything particularly rubbish (possibly because he did nothing at all) MIDFIELD - Useless. No-one in the entire team wanted the ball except for Tansey and Andrew Shinnie, which is a pity because they should never be allowed near it. Shinnie was back to his old self, with a hopeless first touch and no real idea of where he was meant to be playing. Davis and Tansey run around a lot, but Tansey can't pass either and all he does is try speculative shots from distance, while Davis just looked like a headless chicken. Nick Ross looked like a 5 year old playing with teenagers, since he just kept getting bumped off the ball. FORWARDS - Useless. Tade did nothing whilst he was on the pitch, but he got absolutely no service and I'm astonished he was subbed instead of Foran, who might do better if he concentrated on playing instead of just whinging at his teammates and the referee. I'm not sure he could be @rsed breaking into a sprint at any point today, he was frankly just a passenger - and not for the first time this season. SUBS - The only ray of light - Sutherland at least looked like he gave a damn. I'm not convinced Chippendale is any good, but at least he wanted to get on the ball, ran at players, and had our only decent effort on goal. I can deal with rubbish performances, but I just won't tolerate the disinterested, demotivated performance that I wasted my afternoon watching. Next week's game against Dunfermline is already a relegation six-pointer, in my view. This team badly needs Hogg, Cox, Jones, Hayes and Doran back ASAP, and surely the boss has to give Sutherland the chance to prove he's more useful than our mouthy captain. End of rant.